XinhuaFri, 14 Sep 2007 13:26 UTC
Around 22,580 chickens had died of bird flu (Avian Influenza - AI) virus in Indonesia's East Java Province from January to September 2007, a local official said.
The AI virus-infected chickens were mostly from back-yard farming, Antara news agency quoted Bambang Hermawan of the East Java provincial animal husbandry service as saying on Friday in Surabaya, capital of East Java province.
UPIFri, 14 Sep 2007 10:08 UTC
Doctors in Britain say they won't operate on a 57-year-old builder's broken ankle because he is a smoker.
Hospital officials say John Nuttall has to give up his 20 cigarette-a-day habit to be eligible for an operation, The (London) Daily Mail said Thursday.
Nuttall, who broke his ankle in three places in 2005, has smoked for 40 years.
Kim Dixon and Toni Clarke
ReutersFri, 14 Sep 2007 08:30 UTC
Cephalon Inc has warned doctors about deaths linked to improper use of its cancer pain drug Fentora, U.S. drug regulators said on Thursday, sending the company's shares down 5 percent.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted on its Web site Cephalon's letter to doctors dated September 10, warning of deaths and serious side effects in patients treated with the pain killer.
Cephalon spokeswoman Candace Steele said the company has received reports of three deaths related to inappropriate prescribing of the drug. The deaths occurred during the summer and are most likely due to respiratory failure, she said.
Would you drive a SUV called a Himmer" Phonetic symbolism refers to the notion that the sounds of words, apart from their assigned definition, convey meaning. A fascinating forthcoming paper from the October issue of the Journal of Consumer Research applies this theory to product names. The researchers find that product names with vowel sounds that convey positive attributes about the product are deemed more favorable by consumers.
Front vowel sounds are ones that are made with the tongue forward in the mouth, such as the sound of the letter "I" in mill. Back vowel sounds are ones that are made with the tongue farther back in the mouth, such as the "a" sound in mall. Numerous prior studies have shown that the two types of vowel sounds tend to be associated with different concepts that are strikingly uniform, even across cultures. Front vowel sounds convey small, fast, or sharp characteristics, while back vowel sounds convey large, slow, or dull characteristics.
Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMDFri, 14 Sep 2007 04:23 UTC
An expert panel says it's confident there's no health risk from aspartame -- the artificial sweetener used in thousands of food products.
"We conclude aspartame is very safe," panel coordinator Bernadene Magnuson, PhD, assistant professor of nutrition and food science at the University of Maryland, said at a news conference.
Do the panel findings lay to rest all concerns over aspartame safety?
"We hope so," panel chairman William J. Waddell, MD, professor and chair emeritus of toxicology at the University of Louisville, said at the news conference.
Not so, says Michael F. Jacobson, PhD, executive director of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
WASHINGTON - The deaths of two patients prescribed a powerful painkiller as a headache treatment were among four fatalities linked to the recently approved drug, its manufacturer reported Thursday.
All is not well in the playgrounds of the world, says an international group of child therapists, including several prominent Canadians.
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| ©Vancouver Sun
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| A UNICEF report found that British children are among the most unhappy in the developed world. Outdoor, unstructured and loosely supervised play is missing in children's lives, the report added.
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New findings from the WTC health registry show rates were highest among volunteer workers, lowest among police officersThousands of World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers were still suffering serious mental health effects three years after the disaster, the Health Department reported today. New findings released from the World Trade Center Health Registry show that one in eight rescue and recovery workers (12.4%) likely had post-traumatic stress disorder when they were interviewed in 2003 and 2004. The findings were published today in
the American Journal of Psychiatry, available online
here.
Aaron Glantz
IPS NewsWed, 12 Sep 2007 14:59 UTC
Dane and April Somdahl own the Alien Art tattoo parlor on Camp Lejeune Boulevard -- just outside the sprawling Marine Corps base of the same name in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
In an interview from the back of her shop, April talked about how her customers' tastes have changed since George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The United States continues to spend the most on health care when compared to other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Health care prices and higher per capita incomes are major factors for higher U.S. spending, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Princeton University.
Compared to the average OECD country in 2004, the United States has fewer health resources - physicians, nurses and hospital beds - and lower utilization of these resources. Health spending for chronic health issues, such as obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking, also contributes to high health spending in the United States. The study is published in the September/October 2007 issue of Health Affairs.
